September 5, 2010
Samuel: Greetings, dears.
Hello, Samuel.
S: Rough landing.
Welcome back. And now all is right with the world. Hapi dog, you’re welcome to be here, but you know the rules. This isn’t them. (Laughter) Yes, aren’t you cute? All right, go on. “Too much fun right here. Who are they?” You have not seen them, eh? All right, Hapi dog, you know the rules. Come on.
Hello, Owen!! Good-bye, Owen!
However are you?
Tired.
S: Are you tired? A good tired? Good, good. And got through August. Now it is September. Very, very important month . . . hello, love! Good-bye.
I won’t run if you say hello to me!
S: Hello, darling! So good to see you. Suzanne did such good work on the trip. (Audience applauds) There is good reason that she is the toning goddess.
September is important for many reasons. Tell me three.
It’s Sallie’s birthday. It isn’t the one I had in mind, but it is a good one.
We have done the most powerful work we have done to date, and it’s going to have a lot of impact on the world, especially the world immediately around us, which is the United States.
S: That’s true, that’s true. Not what I had in mind either, but that’s good. A hint. September. Harvey.
The autumn equinox.
S: Yes, good, good! You’re just a bunch of heathens, aren’t you? “It’s my birthday, no it’s my birthday . . . it’s dragon time . . . ” It’s the equinox. You know what the equinox is.
. . . closest to the sun.
S: Say that again, Lisa.
Balance between day and night.
S: It is a time in which the light in the world is balanced, more or less—more or less. Theoretically that means day and night are equal, and I believe that they work out the clock timing to make that so, even though cosmically speaking, because of changes in the way that the planet moves and has adjusted itself over time, it’s not really exactly even. What is it that you say?
Close enough for government work.
S: Yes, “close enough for government work.” Sorry, government workers everywhere.
The equinox is a time of preparation, as opposed to solstices, which tend to be a time of celebration. Why would that be? Any ideas?
Solstices are peaks – either a peak of the sunlight, so in the summer solstice it maybe would be a celebration of harvest, a peaking; whereas the winter solstice might be a celebration the light is returning.
S: Good, very good. They are times of action, times of creating the same balance that the cosmos is giving you on your planet. So whether you are northern hemisphere or southern hemisphere, whether it is the spring or the autumn equinox, it is a time of balance, and balance is something you must work to do. Which reminds me of something else about September.
Thank you. Will you say that one?
Labor Day.
S: Labor Day. You actually have another holiday this month.
How many September birthdays? Look at that. You actually have a lot of them. When is yours, Chris?
The sixteenth.
S: And Lakshmi?
On the day of Lifescapes, the twenty-fifth.
S: Twenty-five . . . twenty-two . . . eighteen . . . hmm. Interesting little pile of people here, eh? Interesting. Labor Day is a day about not laboring.
It’s a day of not laboring. It is celebrating labor, or celebrating laborers, yes? And is this one of those holidays that is unique to America? So it’s American labor, yes? Good.
Now give me one more reason why September is special. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. There was a time, although now it seems to be somewhere around the middle of August, but there was a time that September, or after Labor Day, represented the beginning of school. And in all three of these cases, the equinox, the Labor Day holiday, and the beginning of school, they’re all about something starting up. Work. Or creating balance for the rest of the year. Or a time to learn, to get involved, to gain new. So it is a month very much about doors opening. And I am wondering: in your life, if a door opened, would you recognize it? Have you ever heard that sort of a joke kind of thing that says, “If my ship came in I would be at the train station.” If a door opened in front of you, would you be looking through the widows. If a door opened in front of you would you be, “Oh, never mind,” and back to cleaning house?
It’s a month of new beginning, of resetting your mind, your thoughts, resetting your priorities, your educational goals. It is a time of bringing some balance into your life. And that is what I wanted to talk about tonight.
Pardon me just a moment. All right, many of you, this is a little aside: Many of you were on the trip and learned to merge with, communicate with, the creatures. So . . . good work. That’s right. So merge with Hapi dog, a little different than what you’ve been merging with and tell him, “Let go, relax, sleep.” He is very happy to be here and see you. Apparently, he missed you. He’s had nothing to do for two weeks but watch cars go around a track. You laugh; it’s true!
What does opportunity look like for you?
I have come through a period of maybe two years of feeling really miserable with knees and things, and so, having accomplished the surgery, I am looking forward to getting back to being physically active, doing the things I’ve not been able to do for a couple of years.
S: So opportunity looks like less knee pain.
Return to . . .
S: No, return to regular activities and your general level of movement and freedom that way is the goal. The doorway—the opportunity—the what-it-takes-to-make-that-happen, is the lack of pain. So what did you do to bring that opportunity your way?
I just faced the issues of whether or not to have surgery.
S: And the surgery wasn’t any small stuff. Tell them what you did.
I actually had four procedures. Two on each knee. I had the scope which deals with the meniscus, and then when that didn’t work, I had the knee replacement, where they take out your knee and replace it with a metal one—titanium—drill a hole in your knee and glue it in, learn how to walk again, to go up and down stairs.
S: Both sides.
Bionic Bonnie.
S: The bonny Bionic Bonnie.
All those years of dancing I thought were good for me.
S: They were. It’s just later it got a little hard. So I just showed you a bit of a pattern there; did you catch it? You have a goal. In Bonnie’s case that was to move easily, to have less pain, to be able to get back to life as she knew it a few years ago. Actually, you’d like to get back to life as you knew it about twenty years ago, eh? That goal wasn’t going to be reached without doing something. The doing is the opportunity. The choice to do it is the doorway. She had to do something. Sometimes that something is only open the door, and wouldn’t you love it if it was always that easy? Sometimes it’s a whole lot harder, something more like take your knees out and put new ones in. Learn to walk all over again. At this point, are you experiencing less pain?
Yes. The first knee was the easier of the two. The second is taking a little extra effort, but I’m getting there.
S: And you can see that that goal is in sight? I’m so happy for you!
So what is it you want for your start? What do you need to do to bring some balance into your life? I like to refer to life with the visual of a pie chart; mainly that’s because I love those two words together. Pie Chart. Does that not sound like something totally different than what it is? This one is chocolate, and this one is banana, and this one is . . . That would be a pie chart, don’t you think?
All right—in which you divide up all those areas of your life, and you name each one of them—“These are all of the areas of my life.”—and you take a look at them and you say, “What do I want to accomplish in each one of those areas of my life, and what do I need to do to accomplish that?” Before you get there, before you get to where you can look at that pie chart and actually be able to say, “What do I want?” you have to first bring balance into that life. One way to know that you do not have balance in your life, more than simply being in chaos, more than simply being stressed out, more than being overwhelmed and stretched too far and being on edge and not at your best—one of the ways to know that you are out of balance is by looking at where you spend your time. How do you spend a day? If the hours were dollars, what part of your life is the richest? And sticking with that illustration, if the hours were dollars, what part of your life that is the richest? And sticking with that illustration, if the hours are dollars and you’ve got a part of your life that is the richest, is that also a part of your life in which you feel rich, wealthy, filled? Or is it an area of your life that’s pretty much just a big time-suck, not giving back to you any kind of balance compared to what you are giving to it. When you look at how you are spending your time, is there balance between what you are giving and what you are receiving in that area? It should be, in all areas, with an exception. There is a time in your life in which you are giving more than you are receiving. How does that come about? What kind of situation makes that happen? Mary Claire?
When someone in your family, for instance, is undergoing a very serious illness. It’s just required and needed.
S: Somebody close to you is undergoing something and you are needed. Your presence is needed. Sure. Steven.
When you share space with teenage children.
S: (laughs) When you share space with teenagers, a whole lot of your time goes there, and you’re giving a whole lot more of your time than it seems as though you are receiving. Hopefully, that balances itself out sometime.
Yes.
S: I’m not quite so certain that the rule with regards to children is that you will always give more than you receive, and that one of the gifts they give you is to teach you to do that without complaining.
Cam.
I was going to say, when you’re building a business, starting it out, or working to take it to another level.
S: Very good. More? Yes.
Often, with projects, the beginning part of it, you know you’re going to have to spend more time setting the foundation, creating it, getting started than will be giving you back immediately. You’re looking at the longer-term return on it. So sometimes you can’t look at what I’m doing today, and am I getting it back today, tomorrow or next week. It might be next month or next year before I get it back. So, it’s a perspective.
S: So, as a whole the answer might be in situations in which the return is later. In those situations, you’re putting in the work knowing that the return on this will come later. What happens in your life when you’re starting a business, for instance, and you had no idea how much time it was going to take before it all paid you back? Or you have teenagers in your house and you aren’t getting any personal feeding from that. Or you have any kind of project along those lines. What happens then?
I’m going through something very similar right now working on my dance production, where it’s work, work, work right now. What brings about that balance is my connection with the vision that’s helping me do this, and so I know that this is part of a larger vision that I have. And also what brings balance is to let go for it to happen in any way, particularly, and to just be guided through that process.
S: Good, good. Letting go of your expectations can bring it back into balance. But what if that doesn’t work? The answer I’m looking for is, “Then you sure need to be sure that there are plenty of other sections in your life that are in balance. Because when all of your energy is going to this one area but you also have chaos in these areas, you can’t function. You implode and some of you in here know exactly what that feels like. If you do not have balance in your life, then when the unexpected happens, you will not be able to cope. If you do not have balance in your life, when things change—your expectations are not met, the teenager goes off on a tear—is that right? Do they go off on tears? All right. When the business you were setting up isn’t working, when the project is taking too much time, if you do not have that balance, you’re going to lose. The balance is vital, and that balance—as a reminder—is in what you are giving and what you are receiving.
A little hint: the balance of giving and receiving doesn’t have to be in kind. It doesn’t even have to weigh the same. If you can allow the return to come to you in its own way rather than insisting that what you are getting back must look like this, it’s going to be a lot easier for you to bring balance into your life. Can anybody give me an example of what I just said? Hypothetically—just make it up.
I can’t give you an example, but I always call it your karma credits. You have a karma credit account—a bank account.
S: How does that work?
Well, when you put out good energy it may not come back the same way that you thought, but the Universe will give it another direction. You get your karma.
S: Karma credits. I like that. Suzanne.
Okay, a hypothetical situation: You’re putting out a lot of energy toward a certain class, and you’re giving them a lot of extra time, and it’s just a terrible class, very unruly, very unmanageable . . .
S: Very hypothetical.
. . . not getting anything back, and depleted after that. But then going through the halls the next day a couple of students from previous classes come up and give you hugs and say what a wonderful teacher you were and they remember everything you said and you’ve been such an agent of change in their lives. I exaggerate a little bit.
S: Very nice. You start up a business. You’re putting tremendous amounts of time into it and tremendous amounts of money into it while you are waiting for it to take off and earn you a fortune. Well, it keeps taking money and it keeps taking time, and you haven’t made your fortune yet. But if you can allow yourself to say instead, “I have learned so much through this. I have gained an expertise in accounting I never would have had. I have met people and created a family of those who support me and help me. I have learned about marketing,” and on and on and on, then you can see the balance while you’re waiting for that final outpouring.
What does it take to be able to do that?
Trust.
S: Trust, yes.
Perspective.
S: Perspective, yes.
You have to allow yourself to see the bigger picture […] a few years down the road, so enjoy it right now because you will reap it eventually.
S: You must see the bigger picture; that greater perspective is going to allow you to know that it’s going to be coming, but in the meantime you can continue. Now, David.
While I’d like to believe this optimism, it doesn’t always come. And so you have to find the treasures in what you get now, because that’s what you do have now and that’s where you’ll gain from it. So . . .
S: So, you have almost said word for word what I’m looking for. You have to be able to see the positive of what’s going on. You have to be able to see the good. What does it take to be able to see the good? Mike?
You have to focus on it. You have to fake it till you make it to a certain extent . . .
S: Now and again.
. . . you have to ignore the negative, do whatever you need to do to focus on that positive and take your attention off the negative.
S: All right. Let me say that this way: you have to determine within yourself that you are going to look for the positive. You choose to function in the positive rather than getting caught up in the negative. Work?
It’s a very conscious choice.
S: It absolutely is.
You have to force yourself.
S: Sometimes. And that’s where the trust Kathy mentions comes in.
Steven, then Stuart.
Persistence with patience can help you see the good so that you don’t bail out too early, so you don’t get so impatient that you throw your hands up and create chaos. But persistently moving forward, balanced with patient, consciously looking for the good.
S: One of the things that I have seen over and over and over is how impatient Guardians can be. How impatient Guardians can be. Patience-persistence, persistence with patience. That’s not “beat your head up against the brick wall until you’re just a bloody mess.” No, you look for another way around. You don’t stop working toward your goal, but when a door closes you look for another way to get around to it. That’s persistence with patience. Persistence without patience is just beating your head up against the wall until you’re bloody in the head. And there are too many who mistake “going for the goal my way,” which means right through this wall, rather than going for the goal in the way that it works out best to reach it.
Stuart.
I was going to say getting to a place of gratitude.
S: And that is one of the easiest ways to turn on your “functioning positively” brain set. Think gratitude.
Catherine.
Honor it all as a process. Life is a process, everything about life is a process.
S: And that speaks with patience there. Honor the process. Don’t get so caught in where it’s going that you move out of this moment.
Frank, Suzanne, David, Gayle—no Gayle and David, because I know you’re going a different way. Frank.
Taking the opportunity when things don’t seem to be going the way you want them to, to re-analyze your goals, to look at them and see if that goal is still something you want, and determine whether it’s not coming about because you don’t want it anymore and you’re sabotaging it by not putting the effort to it. But I find when I realize I still want the goal, it gives me new impetus to go after it, and also gives me a new way of looking at it and perhaps a new way of finding it.
S: Good. Did you get that? One of the things that should be a signal in your head when you are doing that “beat your head up against the wall” thing—or you’re not beating your head up against the wall but you’re looking for the other options and you’re not finding them—take a look at your goal. You might be giving yourself a message without realizing it. Take a look at that goal. Is this something you still want? How many of you in this life have had a goal change? Yes, that was probably every hand in here. What you wanted you don’t want anymore. Like Owen, which is kind of sad right now.
[Owen upset in the background, gets led away.] Good-bye.
Do I still want it? If I don’t still want it, maybe that’s why I can’t see any options. If I do still want it—Frank said something lovely. He said, “It gives me new impetus toward that goal again, because I realize I really do want it, and that gets me up and gets me going again.” So, yes. Take another look.
After Frank was . . .
Going back to honor the process, I’m very goal-oriented, which has worked very well in my life, but it’s also contributed to that impatience, and being able to see the gifts in the process really helps that work better. So it’s not the end result that is the reward; it’s all of the gifts along the way.
S: It becomes a much bigger package. The end result is not just making a fortune; it’s realizing that you have become wealthy in every area of your life while you were working at it. It’s very, very powerful.
After Suzanne was . . .
When I get really stuck it’s easy for me to get discouraged. But what I’ve found is that if I make a list of positive aspects about everything that’s going on and where I’m headed, that it changes the energy and sends it back in the right direction and channels it. And you can see the doors open then.
S: That’s lovely, that’s lovely. When you’re feeling stuck, she just starts focusing on, and actually making a list, “Here are all of the positive things going on. This is what’s good about this project, this life.”
The last time that we met together, Mary Claire was sitting where Lillibeth is now, and she was, by my instigation, telling you about all of the things going on in her life. And my point had to do with her attitude with regard to it. A very much staying-in-the-now, in-the-moment kind of attitude, while her house was being practically rebuilt, everything was in storage, she was living in a hotel, and her father was dying. Now that’s a lot.
And I will just out and out say what she has gained by her attitude through this can never bring her father back, and take her back to the old kitchen that she loved, and the rugs that were so nice. It won’t do that. But it has allowed a situation that for most people would be intolerable and cause them to do the moan and groan, and “The Universe doesn’t love me, and . . .” And she has become stronger—well you’ve both become. It was just Mary Claire that was doing the talking—stronger, more positive, but more than that, much, much wiser and more capable of creating good out of the next thing life brings. And she’s done it all without going crazy-er.
In many ways, life is a series of catching up. But the catching up means actions that you put into play a long time ago are catching up with you now. And what you are living at this moment is often thoroughly infused with an attitude you had a few years ago that’s catching up with you now. Or some things that you did, or people you affected, and it’s coming to you now.
You are building your future now. And you can be building it out of whining, and entitlement and a have-to-have-it-your-way, and “how could this happen?” and “I’ve done everything and (whines).” Or you can say, “Here’s what I’m dealing with, and right now this is what it looks like. Here’s what I’ll do . . . and right now this is what it looks like and here’s what I’ll do.” You cannot do that if you do not have balance in your life. Balance is what you need first to be able to recognize a doorway.
David.
Well, I think other people sort of said what I want to say, but I’m going to humbly put this forward as Gosselin’s Law of Value. If the only thing of value in a process is the end product, then it has no value.
S: Nice. Say that again, please.
If the only thing that has value in a process is the end product, then it has no value.
S: Wow. Wow. What he said. Let’s have it a third time.
If the only thing of value in a process is the end product, then it has no value.
S: [whispers to David] All of these hands are writing this down.
So, to go back to opportunity—September’s opportunity—we’ve said that you must have balance; you must look at gaining from every bit of it instead of just saying the gain comes at the very end. Remember Gosselin’s Rule of . . . what did you call it?
Value.
S: . . . of Value. But you know there’s another thing you’ve got to able to do, and that is recognize a doorway. And sometimes you’ve got all the steps right, but you miss the opportunity because you didn’t recognize what the doorway looked like. So how do you know if it’s an opportunity or a distraction? Or, for those who’d like to believe that the Universe dangles things in front of you to test you to see if you will actually do it, the Universe does not do that. It doesn’t need to; you do it to yourself enough. How do you know what an opportunity looks like?
Well, if you have a vision, an overall vision, and the opportunity fits within that vision, then it’s good to give it a try. For me personally, I’ve found that to be the case. And it may not look at all like what I was looking for, but I’ve found it’s taken me—in my life I’ve found it’s taken me glorious places that I never ever dreamed that I would go, because it fit. I could give it that test. For me that’s the test. If I have an overall vision for my life, if I have a vision for my work, for my relationships, then I can give it that test and I can see if it will fit. And if it does, then it’s something, probably a gift.
S: Good. That pie chart is all about goals. But the pie chart as a whole requires a vision. Each one of those sections should be a means of bringing you to that vision. Every area of your life, every different costume that you wear, all of the different roles that you play, they all are means of living that greater vision. Your goal is a part of that vision. The opportunity is a part of that vision. “Well, you know, this has really taken me a very different way, and I can kind of see how this could be a part of the greater whole, and I don’t really know how to do this, but the opportunity presented itself.” That probably isn’t an opportunity; that’s probably just one of the many crossroads that life drops in front of you. It’s not an opportunity; the opportunity fits with your vision and is accessible through your goals.
Now, more on that. How do you know when it’s an opportunity? Go ahead, Bonnie.
I’m not quite sure I have this quite organized in my mind yet, but because I danced as a very young person, I naturally assumed that’s that what I wanted to do. And I spent twenty years teaching dance, and it never quite satisfied me. And at the time . . .
S: Just a moment. She just said a really key thing. Keep going.
And when my mother became . . . time for her to go into a nursing home, it gave me the opportunity to end that career of dancing. And it allowed me free time to do other things.
S: For which I am grateful.
Well, during that free time I discovered Phoenix and Samuel and all of those things. And that was an opportunity and I don’t think I recognized it as such. I just knew I was going to be off the hook for doing something. It was just not totally satisfying to me. Just as a little aside there, a lot of years later, I wanted the kids to learn the routines and do well, and to look cute and do all those things. I didn’t have any great big worthy goals for them other than to collect their tuitions, to look cute, and keep mommas happy, that sort of thing. But the time came where I, just a couple of years ago, someone notified me that there was something on the internet called I Danced My Heart out for Bonnie Haley School of Dance. And all of my old students had come together and showed pictures of their costumes, their routines. They talked about the music. So I was making a lot of people happy and affecting them in ways I had no idea that I was doing.
S: That’s a wonderful story, and particularly a propos here because you need to realize that what she’s saying is, she really liked to dance, she enjoyed it, and kind of like there wasn’t anything else she wanted to do, so why not teach other people to dance, and started a school of dance, never feeling fulfilled, but enjoying it and touching lives because she’s a Guardian. That’s going to happen. And when something came up that, in her words, that “let her off the hook,” when something came up that gave her the opportunity to put that away, she started really getting into what did fulfill her.
An opportunity is something you want, and as you work in it, it’s fulfilling, satisfying because you see how it’s a part of that division; you see how it’s a function toward what you want. You see the doorway because it’s a part of that greater view.
What’s the difference between a doorway and a window? As far as I’m concerned, nothing. If there’s a window there, then it’s just as good as the doorway. You might have to wiggle a little more to get in. If there’s a doorway, it doesn’t work, and there are no windows, have a few moments of gratitude that you didn’t get caught in something that would have made you truly unhappy. Unhappiness is a function of fear. The bottom line for fear is, “I am not enough.” No better way to convince yourself you are not enough than to be involved in something that doesn’t feed you, that does not fulfill you, that does not give to you—leading you to fearful unhappiness. A lot of people choose that because they don’t have anything better to do, because they don’t know what else to do.
You can avoid that. Start with balance. Shift into positive vision, gratitude thinking. Work it by having a vision that is reached by a goal that is accomplished by focusing in your now, this moment, this one only.
Whether you are going back to school, changing the nature of your work, this month is a turn-around month. You’re three quarters of the way into a year of renewal and it’s time for action. Take a serious look at your life. Look at every portion of that pie. What are your goals, how does it work toward your greater vision? What positive is going on? Do you see opportunity? Are there doorways? There used to be a phrase that was bandied about quite a bit—by me as well: Create Your Own Reality. Well, baby, this is how: moment by moment, day by day, goal by goal, toward that greater vision. Do it with balance, inside and out.
And I will add just one thing to it: do it with love, because that opens the heart. And that’s where, for you, the biggest difference is made. All right, got to stop.
Glochanumora. dear ones. Happy trails.
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